Politics on the Hudson

Mayor Clinton Young has tapped his 28-year-old deputy chief of staff and spokesman to be the city’s next water commissioner. Brian Bochow, Jr., will take over the job from David Ford, who is retiring after 32 years and seven mayoral administrations leading the Board of Water Supply. Ford also has been a powerful political leader, having chaired the Mount Vernon Democratic Party for 27 years through 1996. He is credited with building up the party committee from obscurity into a powerful organization in county politics.

Bochow has worked in Clinton’s administration since January 2008. He starts his new job as water commissioner Jan. 4 at a salary of $73,456. At the age of 28, he is one of the youngest commissioners in the history of the city, according a press release sent by Bochow himself.

The city’s Board of Water Supply is responsible for ensuring an adequate supply of safe water for home, business and fire-fighting purposes.

Mount Vernon City Judge candidate Nichelle Johnson, who lost the Democratic primary race by 146 votes, has not conceded the race. Johnson, who lost to incumbent Helen Blackwood, said Wednesday she was waiting for the results of a recanvass by the county Board of Elections, which is done for all the races before results are certified as official. The Board of Elections count shows Blackwood with 42 percent of the vote, Johnson with 39 percent, and Tamika Coverdale with 20 percent. Johnson will appear on the Conservative and Independence lines in the general election.

The busy Democratic primary for Mount Vernon City Council is shaping up to be no primary at all. Yesterday, the state Court of Appeals refused to hear a case by council candidates Sam Rivers and Michelle Walker, who were ousted from the Democratic ballot last week. A judge had ruled last week that their petitions were invalid because neither indicated on the petition whether they were running for full terms or for a shorter, unexpired term that also was open. Click here for ruling.

That decision follows the ouster of four other candidates — Collie Edwers, Debra Stern, Eileen Justino and Jennifer “Anne” Sampson — from the Democratic ballot for City Council. The four had been nominated by the Democratic City Committee to run for City Council, but were kicked off because they didn’t note that one of them was running for a shorter, unexpired term.

Candidates Yuhanna Edwards, Roberta Apuzzo, Karen Watts and Diane Munro were not dropped from the ballot because one of those candidates, Munro, indicated she was running for the unexpired term on their petition. So in the end, they are the only candidates left standing on the Democratic ballot for City Council.

Rivers will appear on the Conservative and Independence lines, and Walker on the Independence line. Edwers, Stern, Justino and Sampson will run on a newly formed line called One Mt. Vernon.

Democratic primaries will still take place for city domptroller and city judge.

Mount Vernon candidate Samuel Rivers should pull out of the race for City Council following allegations that he was found drunk with a gun poking out of his waistband, Councilman Marcus Griffith said today. Read more about the incident here.

Griffith, who is running for City Comptroller, held a press conference today calling for Rivers to step down. He also said Maureen Walker, his opponent in the Democratic primary for comptroller, should “disassociate herself from the candidacy of Samuel L. Rivers.” Griffith said Walker and Rivers had shared a nominating petition.

Here is Griffith’s statement: “It is an embarrassment to the people of the city of Mount Vernon that someone with a lengthy record of contact with law enforcement is on the ballot for the upcoming primary election for city council candidates. It is time for Sam Rivers to withdraw his candidacy for the city council. In addition, in the interest of the safety of all law-abiding citizens, I ask the Westchester Department of Public Safety to permanently revoke any license that Rivers has to own or carry a handgun. Furthermore, I call on Maureen Walker to disassociate herself from Sam Rivers. Ms. Walker clearly enjoyed the benefit of these signature totals in her effort to qualify to appear on the ballot for the primary election and while she was not at all implicated in any of Rivers’ criminal behavior, her association with Rivers further erodes the already tarnished reputation of the Mount Vernon Comptroller’s Office.”

The Mount Vernon Democratic City Committee made a basic mistake on their petition and got their four candidates for City Council booted off the ballot.

They made this mistake even though the county’s Democratic election commissioner serves as vice-chair of  that very committee. Commissioner Reginald LaFayette then later had to issue a ruling against his own committee because it was clear that the petition violated election law.

Asked about the situation, LaFayette said no one asked him for help. Other Democratic leaders passed the buck. They said some district leaders knew about the mistake, but never bothered to mention it to party bosses. Was the information withheld because of an oversight, or because of malice? Committee Chairman Deveraux Cannick wouldn’t say.

The petition failed to note one of the candidates was running for a shorter, unexpired term. Other less organized political factions got it right. As a result, the county Board of Elections dropped Jennifer “Anne” Sampson, Debra Stern, Eileen Justino and Collie Nathan Edwers from the ballot. Yesterday, a state Supreme Court judge upheld that decision.

The mistake that could have been avoided if someone spoke up or asked for help. Now, the Democratic Committee has no candidates for city council on the primary ballot. On top of that, the debacle may have paved the way for rivals and political foes of the Democratic establishment and Mayor Clinton Young to win office.

You’d think heads would roll because of this mess. But so far, I haven’t heard about any party shakeup. Have you?

Mount Vernon City Council candidate Samuel Rivers said he was mistaken when he asked for up to $10,000 in campaign contributions on an invitation for his Aug. 6 campaign fundraiser. The invitation for the fundraiser at Ciao Restaurant in Eastchester had several levels of sponsorship, including $99 for copper; $250 for bronze; $500 for silver; $1,000 for gold; $5,000 for platinum; and $10,000 for gold.

Under New York State law, contributions from non-family members are capped, based on the number of registered voters in one’s political party, at about $1,300. For family, the cap is around $6,500. A corporation can give up to $5,000 in a calendar year.

Rivers said he didn’t have the information in front of him when he drafted the invitation from his iPhone. “If I can’t seek $10,000, I won’t seek $10,000,” he said. “It was a mistake.”

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Deveraux Cannick, chairman of the Mount Vernon Democratic City Committee, issued this statement last night about the county Board of Elections ruling that knocked the committee’s four city council candidates off the ballot. Here it is:

Mount Vernon, NY — Unfortunately the Westchester County Board of Elections determined that our candidates should not be on the ballot based on a technicality regarding which candidates should be running for the unexpired term for the city council seat that was vacated by councilwoman Loretta Hottinger even though councilwoman Eileen Justino is the candidate on the Democratic Party petition to replace her.

The Mount Vernon Democratic Party has been and will continue to be the champions for democracy. We believe that the almost three thousand registered democratic Mount Vernon residents that signed our petitions to get these candidates on the ballot as well as the more that one hundred unpaid volunteers who tirelessly worked on behalf of the Democratic candidates have a constitutional right to vote for these candidates.

There are four seats up for the city council and the democratic voters have signed petitions for these four candidates and we will not allow Mount Vernon residents to be denied their voting rights on a technicality.  We will use all the resources of the Mount Vernon Democratic Party to make sure that our voters are not disenfranchised. We are confident that justice will prevail; our candidates will be restored to the ballot and that Mount Vernon voters will have the opportunity to vote for the candidates of their choice.

All voters of Mount Vernon, Westchester and indeed New York should be appalled that a technicality would attempt to be used to deny voters the candidates of their choice. Last year these same unpaid volunteers worked tirelessly to bring out over 23,000 votes in the national election for Obama, whom we know would not agree with depriving people the right to vote for the candidates of their choice.

Four candidates for city council in Mount Vernon who were endorsed by the Democratic City Committee have been all been kicked off the primary ballot. Eileen Justino, Jennifer “Anne” Sampson, Debra Stern and Collie Nathan Edwers were dropped from the ballot because of a mistake in the party’s petition.

The Westchester County Board of Elections ruled that the party violated election law because it failed to specify that one of the candidates was running for an unexpired term, so it appears on the petition as though all four are running for full terms. There are only three full-term seats open on the council, so that’s considered an over designation.

To read the ruling from the Board of Elections commissioners, click here: mvruling

On Sunday, The Journal News took a look at campaign accounts for candidates seeking  the Democratic line in Mount Vernon city races. Candidates who raised money from Jan. 11 to July 11 or who carried over money from a previous election were required to file financial reports with the state Board of Elections last week.

Here are the total amounts that city candidates claimed to have in their campaign coffers, after expenses, as of July 11:

• Maureen Walker, seeking re-election as comptroller, had a whopping $110,255, most of it raised in previous years during annual fund-raising dinner dances. See story here.

• Helen Blackwood, running for judge, had $8,944.

• Debra Stern, running for council, had $2,152.

• Eileen Justino, running for council, had $3,005.

• Collie Nathan Edwers, running for council, had $1,722.

• Roberta Apuzzo, running for council, had $5,285.

• Yuhanna Edwards, who is seeking re-election to the City Council, said he was late in filing with the state. He faxed a copy of financial reports that he submitted to the county last week showing he had $3,443.

Other Mount Vernon candidates either did not have to file financial reports, or reported no financial activity during the period in question. A database of financial reports can be found here.

Janet DiFiore, who is seeking re-election as Westchester County District Attorney, chided aspiring Mount Vernon City Council candidate Samuel Rivers for his comments about her yesterday. Rivers said the city’s Democratic committee was wrong to endorse DiFiore over Democratic challenger Tony Castro. 

DiFiore issued this statement today: “Mr. Rivers seriously misjudges the integrity and intelligence of the people in the city of Mt. Vernon. My positions are well-known to serious and informed voters. I am a recognized leader in advocating for reform of the drug laws and I am not a proponent of the death penalty. Of greater concern to all should be the fact that Sam Zherka walked Tony Castro into the Board of Elections to file Castro’s petitions for District Attorney, the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the county. Anyone who wants to be District Attorney should have better sense then to be led around by a strip club owner who is under investigation and Sam Rivers, a criminal defendant in this county.”